A 3-mile evacuation around the Spectra pipeline would be the whole of Jersey City.

Quote:

Williams Cos Inc said a natural gas pipeline in Pennsylvania ruptured late Wednesday, requiring area residents to evacuate their homes briefly but causing no injuries or impact to service.

"There was no fire," Williams spokesman Chris Stockton said on Thursday as the company moved the flow of gas through the area to its other pipes in the area.

He said the rupture occurred in Lycoming County near the town of Unityville in the northeastern part of the state.

The breach was in a section of the Transco Leidy pipeline, which moves gas from the Leidy area in north central Pennsylvania to the main Transco pipeline in New Jersey.

The middle of three pipes in that section of the Leidy pipeline failed, Stockton said.

The Leidy pipeline moves gas from the Marcellus shale area of Pennsylvania. It is a bidirectional system with multiple lines that can transport in total about 3.5 billion cubic feet per day, Stockton said.

The United States consumes on average about 76 bcf per day of gas.

Stockton could not say how much gas was flowing or could flow through the section of pipe that ruptured but noted the company was using the other two pipes in the area to continue moving gas to and from customers.

"We responded to the rupture pretty quickly by remotely shutting off the flow of gas," Stockton said.

The line ruptured around 9:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0130 GMT Thursday), according to local media reports, causing a voluntary evacuation of residents living within three miles. Officials lifted the evacuation order at about 11:45 p.m.

Stockton said the company had a sample of metal from the pipe and was sending it to a lab to determine the cause of the failure. He could not immediately say when the pipe could return to service.

In Pennsylvania, Williams is building the 0.53 bcfd Leidy Southeast looping project to move more gas along the Leidy system and expects it to enter service late this year, according to the company's website.

Williams also said on its website that it was developing the 1.7 bcfd Atlantic Sunrise project to move gas from Pennsylvania to the Southeast. The project is not under construction but has a target date of summer 2017 to enter service.

"A very large gas pipeline will soon skirt the Indian Point Energy Center (IPEC), an aging nuclear power plant that stands in the town of Cortlandt in Westchester County, New York, 30 miles north of Manhattan. The federal agencies that have permitted the project have bowed to two corporations -- the pipeline's owner, Spectra Energy, and Entergy, which bought the Indian Point complex in 2001 from its former owner.

A hazards assessment by a former employee of one of the plant's prior owners, replete with errors, was the basis for the go-ahead. A dearth of mainstream press coverage leaves ignorant the New York metropolitan region's population of 20 million people, which stands to be impacted by a nuclear catastrophe. Experts say a disaster as great as or greater than Fukushima could be triggered by a potential gas explosion at the nuclear complex."

(Reuters) - A construction crew on Friday accidentally ruptured a natural gas transmission line in Fresno, California, sparking an explosion and fire that injured up to 15 people, four of them critically, officials said.

The 12-inch (30-cm) pipeline, belonging to Pacific Gas & Electric Corp (PCG.N), was struck by a backhoe near state Highway 99, unleashing a fireball that injured members of the construction team and a jail inmate crew nearby, Fresno Fire Department spokesman Peter Martinez said.

JGJDNYCJC - This is not a normal household pipeline. This Spectra pipeline is a massive 30 inch, highly pressurized transport pipeline, meant to feed NYC (it provides no benefit to JC). It combines two particularly dangerous characteristics - it is very large (30 inches) and is highly pressurized.

Think of it this way, a small household pipeline at low pressure can cause a pretty good explosion (think - the recent NYC gas pipeline explosion that happened a year or two ago and kiled a couple of people and leveled the building). The Spectra pipeline of this magnitude would cause an explosion that would engulf a HUGE blast radius. Check out the link dtcview provided below.

Our pipeline is rather unprecendented in the USA because it was run directly through heavily populated areas, including directly next to several schools, nurseries and playgrounds. There was an alternative route, but Spectra didn't want to spend the money. It's an unconscionable disregard for the lives of JC residents. It is immoral, as Pebble has stated. Unfortunately, those that stand to gain on these projects rarely think about the people that may suffer because of it.

Many of the recent explosions (and there have been many - just do a google search on gas pipeline explosions) had lower body counts because they occured in unpopulated areas. Were the same type of explosion to happen to the JC pipeline, it was be a human tragedy on a scale not seen before in the USA.

My opinion is that, generations from now, we will look back at the expansion of natural gas infrastructure as a real mistake.

Additionally Borisp, we obtain a benefit from driving and assuming the risks of driving. With the JC pipeline, JC residents do not obtain any benefit at all - we simply assume the (particularly deadly) risk so that a corporate entity and NYC can benefit.

Our pipeline is rather unprecendented in the USA because it was run directly through heavily populated areas, including directly next to several schools, nurseries and playgrounds. There was an alternative route, but Spectra didn't want to spend the money. It's an unconscionable disregard for the lives of JC residents. It is immoral, as Pebble has stated. Unfortunately, those that stand to gain on these projects rarely think about the people that may suffer because of it.

Many of the recent explosions (and there have been many - just do a google search on gas pipeline explosions) had lower body counts because they occured in unpopulated areas. Were the same type of explosion to happen to the JC pipeline, it was be a human tragedy on a scale not seen before in the USA.

My opinion is that, generations from now, we will look back at the expansion of natural gas infrastructure as a real mistake.

borisp wrote:Acquaintances of mine died in a car crash. Should I never drive again?

Or, should I may be weigh pros and cons, take into account risks, costs and benefits of both driving and not driving, and come to a rational decision instead?

Those building this pipeline have an alternative route for which less people would be in possible danger should something go wrong. Using your analogy, it would be the same as you saying that won't speed down rural streets at night because your friends hit a deer.

In this case, the manufacturer has chosen to place more lives at risk in order to save money. It is an immoral decision.

If they were like you, they'd see the other explosions, weigh the risk and choose to route the pipeline in a different, less dangerous, direction.